Flames Build and Overcome
by Incy Little Spider
Summary: Dear diary. I know I don't talk to you often but this is something important. There's something behind my bedroom. Right above my wall. He watches me. He whispers to me. And I think he's growing stronger.
1. The Voice Behind the Wall

Dear Diary,

I know I usually write in this about my study schedules and revision notes - I find that more important then prattling on about what boy I have a crush on or some other irrelevant drivel. However, I have discovered something that has proven even more important then my academic career and it's not exactly a topic I can discuss with my peers or even my family. I fear they may come to the incorrect conclusion that I have become too stressed and have thus, made myself unwell.

I have found something living in my bedroom wall.

There. It's such a relief to have that written down.

The Professor recently made the decision to separate my sisters and I into our own bedrooms, because at thirteen we are much too old to be sleeping in the same room. We helped to construct the new rooms ourselves. Although significantly smaller, we all appreciate the new-found privacy.

It was a week after we had settled in, when I discovered the small hole in the wall about 30 centimeters above my bed. The hole is about the size of a quater and even my own x-ray vision could not penetrate the darkness within it. This deeply unsettled me.

That weekend, we were invited to a party by one of our peers. I found it uncomfortably different to the parties I'd attended in the past. Buttercup says she saw much older teenagers drinking by the back fence - I sincerely hope none of my own schoolmates were amongst this crowd. Drinking underage is an offense after all and it is scientifically proven to damage the developing brain cells of a young teenager or adult.

After further thought, I must conclude that Mitch Mitchelson may have been intoxicated. While I sat on a couch with my soda and discussed the current political climate with Mary, Mitch sat behind me and began to play with my hair. I of course told him to back off and he laughed and said I needed to 'loosen up.'

The rest of the night passed with my schoolmates slobbering and groping at each other, prompting me to leave early.

I wish I had friends with the same levels of maturity as me. Friends who did not embarrass themselves by succumbing to such carnal desires.

That night I thought I saw a flickering light coming out of the hole above my bed and I smelt something like a flame burning low.

I've been finding high-school very unexciting. Despite being placed in advanced classes, the material comes easily to me and I find it takes me little to no effort to master my work. Other students snicker when I put my hand up. They never offer answers, so I of course feel obliged to share my knowledge.

My friends often tell me to "let loose." They spend their weekends out in town or hanging in the park or having their ridiculous parties. I'm sorry I have more important duties to attend to. I'm sorry we have a town that needs to be saved which only I can do. I'm sorry I value my brain over my reproductive organs.

One time in the middle of the night, I thought I saw an eye watching me through the hole in the wall but when I blinked it was gone. I whispered out _who's there_ but only the silence answered me.

Bubbles and Buttercup are thankfully not too preoccupied with superficialities, but again I worry they don't focus on their training and study enough. Bubbles has joined cooking classes and environmental groups and she often has no time to better her skills in fighting, or do her homework. Buttercup likes to write songs and she plays them on her guitar and sometimes I see her at the skate park with older types. I hope she isn't being drawn into the wrong crowd. I should talk to her.

Sometimes I find myself stopping robberies, fighting monsters and going up against the varied members of Townsville's rogue's gallery by myself. However, I can't help but think I do a better job by myself anyway. I'm the only one who has a consistent training schedule. More then ever I notice the power imbalance between my sisters and I.

My friends tell me I brag too much.

I hate to be overly emotional - but there's something inside my heart that hurts me. Something bitter and pulsing and sometimes it stings so bad it makes me want to cry. I can't find a source to these feelings.

But that's not why I'm writing in here today.

The thing in the wall is talking to me.

He won't tell me his name - but he knows mine.

He only talks during the night.

I could fall asleep to his voice, but I can't - that'd be stupid.

When I ask how he got there, he rumbles in my ear about the Professor's ancestors from long, long ago. How they thought he committed a terrible crime, but how it was all lies, despicable lies.

I ask him how long he's been there, even though I'm afraid of the answer.

He says he's been there longer then I can imagine. And when I ask why I've never heard of him until now, he says he's been sleeping for just as long.

I don't know how I woke him up. Why it was me that awoke him. Sometimes I feel his gaze on me when I'm brushing my hair in front of the mirror. This might sound silly, but I've get dressed in the bathroom nowadays.

I hate to admit this...

But I'm scared.

Really scared.

* * *

Dear Diary,

This sounds strange I know, but

but I'm talking to him now.

About all kinds of topics that I can't talk about to anyone else.

The teachers are too busy, schoolmates eyes glaze over.

I'm sorry for the poor grammar.

Sleep-deprived.

Can't go to sleep. He's watching me.

I'm writing this, writing this at Ms Keane's house.

Childish I know.

I've been awake too long.

And I don't want to sleep over at a friend's house.

With their stupid titter about who likes who and other ridiculous gossip.

I wish my friends were as smart and interesting as...

* * *

Dear Diary,

I'm sorry for the way I trailed off in my last entry. I fell asleep mid-sentence. I guess even a superhero can't fight sleep for too long

I've been having a lot of sleep overs lately. Sometimes at a friend's house, sometimes at Ms Keane's. The Professor seems to be worried but he needn't be. I've concluded that because of my lack of sleep, I was experiencing hallucinations. That's a common symptom - I looked it up to make sure. Anyway I must've imagined it. It's not real. It's extensive history is a product of my over active imagination - my mind when left with no stimulation at school, manifested a shape in the wall that was my own intellectual equal.

That makes perfect sense to me.

Although I'm not going back home to see if it's still there.

No way.

* * *

Dear Diary,

It's midnight. And he's here.

He's watching me now as I write. The light from beyond the wall casts it's flame across the bed and he watches me.

He recognizes something in me.

He nurtures it.

He says I'm smarter then anybody knows.

I think that painful thing is getting more liquid black in my chest.

I can't sleep. There's something wrong with me. Right in the back of my throat. Right at the bottom of my belly.

He's telling me to let him out.

He wants me to break down the wall.

Only I can do it.

Only I am strong enough, smart enough to do it.

I don't want to. I can't.

I'm a hero and he was locked in there for a reason. Some mysterious reason that I can't find in books. I can't let him out, I want to let him out, there's something deep down inside me and I'm scared.

He's just trying to play me. Trick me. He can't outsmart me, he won't.

But I want to let him out. I want to.

Sometimes I think he's getting stronger every day.

He's going to get out soon. I know it.


	2. Sweet Blossom

Young Blossom was busy writing away at her History Essay that was due in a week. Other classmates were talking about doing it the night before, but she knew it was something that needed time and effort. Anyway, if Blossom needed to put effort into a bit of homework, an ordinary student had no chance at finishing it off in a night.

She was getting into the zone, absorbed in the writing and information; Bubbles got into the zone through her painting and gardening, Buttercup through sport. That zone where everything else in the world ceased to matter and all that was important was the scratch of her pen and the ideas burbling like a river in her mind...

And then as if the world was playing a cosmic joke on her, the lights went out with a crackle of electricity, plunging the room into darkness.

Her huge pink eyes blinked with confusion through the gloom. Anger overtook her and she put the pen down.

"For goodness sake."

Glancing out the window, she saw that the whole street had suffered the same power outage. Just when she was really getting into it too!

Annoyed noises started picking up around the house, and she was just about to go down to join them in the lounge, when her room was cast with something akin to orange candlelight. For a moment she thought the lights had come back on, but then the back of her neck prickled and a strange heat flooded her body as she became aware of the presence standing in the corner of her bedroom. She didn't know what to say, her mouth dry and her stomach liquid water. She swallowed hard and ducked her head down.

"Thank you," she said softly, picking up her pen and getting back to her essay. She didn't dare look around; feeling his eyes watching her as the nib of her pen worked away at the paper. The sounds of her irritated family seemed faraway now...it was only her, the work desk and him suspended in the darkness, the crackling flames the only sound through the endless abyss around them.

"**_It is my pleasure,_**" she heard him say and she shivered. "**_Sweet Blossom._**"


	3. Why Do the Shadows Breathe?

She awoke in the darkness, her blond hair a sweaty mess over her face. The darkness of her room enveloped her and the fear was strong and bitter in her chest, like poison at the back of her throat. Suddenly she was five years old again, her toys casting sinister shapes through the night, the stillness like a tomb around her.

Why had she woken so suddenly? She'd been wrenched out of her shadowy, unsettled dreamworld and into an even darker reality. But why? The air was quiet, but their was a strange taste and texture to it; almost alive with menace. The unease was thick, dark treacle, dripping down her veins. Before she knew what she was doing, she was pulling back the blankets and floating for the door. Something told her to keep her mouth shut, told her not to turn on the lights. There was something in the air; at the back of her throat and prickling over her skin.

Something was wrong.

She checked the Professor's room and Buttercup's. Both were soundly asleep, tucked under their blankets. The voice told her that of course they were fine. Didn't she already know whose bedroom would be empty? Didn't she know the minute she opened her eyes and tasted that dark venom on her tongue?

Blossom.

There was something wrong with Blossom.

How she had wanted to knock on her locked door these past months, find her there and talk to her. Talk to her about how withdrawn she was becoming, how cold her eyes were getting, how she seemed to be wasting the days away locked up in her room.

Yet, with her hand at the doorknob and the strange candlelight flickering from within, she found she couldn't do it. Like the black tendrils of someone's iron will was pushing her away. _Leave her alone, _it said. _This is not your business. _

Sometimes she caught eyes with the Professor and Buttercup over the dining table or across the couch and she knew they'd tried as well. But something had pushed them back. The idea was too large, too terrifying to comprehend, so she allowed it to be taken from her mind. Blossom was just caught up in her schoolwork. Blossom was just adjusting to high-school. It was just Blossom's hormones...

It wasn't...it wasn't something...there wasn't something bigger here...something in this house...

But now, at Blossom's slightly opened door in the crawling, pulsating darkness, all those excuses seemed to melt away. Something was wrong here. Something they'd all missed. Something she didn't understand.

Inside, the room was empty, dark and cold. She looked at the expanse of smooth, blank wall over Blossom's bed and there was a niggling at the back of her skull, a pinching uncomfortable sensation. She was missing something here. Shouldn't there be...shouldn't there be...?

A creak echoed behind her and she whipped around, gasping.

Blossom pushed the door open a little more as she slid into the room, eyes fixed on the floor, her mouth pulled down, not even seeming to notice her. Her skin was as pale as salt, there were dark bags under her eyes and her hair hung in untidy bangs over her face. She looked utterly exhausted.

"_Blossom?_" she breathed and the shadows seemed to dance around her. "_Blossom...where were you?_"

She looked up with her drooping eyelids, mouth opening wide like a lamb crying for milk. Even with her gaze fixed on her sister, she didn't seem to be really looking at her. Her huge pink eyes were faraway.

"_Don't worry_," she whispered. "_I was...just in the laboratory._"

Bubbles swallowed thickly, her lungs constricted in her chest. She watched as those pink eyes slowly turned and fixed at the stretch of wall above her bed, with its plaster completely unblemished.

"_Why...why were you in...why were in the laboratory for?_"

Blossom didn't say anything, looking dazed and unfocused, still staring unblinkingly at the wall. She started to think she wouldn't even answer but then her lips moved and the words crept like the breath of a summer's breeze in her ear.

"_Do you...do you ever think_..." she murmured, blinking slowly. "_Do you think we got it wrong?_"

It was like they were still in a dream together. Just floating in the nothingness of the room, with the moonlight shining blue on their skin.

"_What?"_

Their breath drifted together, combining and mixing above their heads, shadows pulsing around them.

"_When we were little...and we flew into the future..."_

Her words painted images through the darkness of the room, painted bleak landscapes and dead horizons over her mind's eye. Red earth and orange sky, black torrents above her, cracks and pillars and sobbing, broken people. The pain and the agony and her own screams escaping her throat as the misery tore it's daggers into her soul. They never talked about that day from so long ago. Not ever.

"_Maybe...maybe it wasn't...maybe Him didn't do it..." _Blossom was saying, not looking at her. Maybe she wasn't even talking to her. Maybe she was talking to someone else.

"_What do you mean_?" and the fear was like bile in her throat, her eyes prickling, her heart pounding in her mouth; "_Of course it was Him. Who else could've done it?"_

_"Someone more powerful..." _she said and the shadows were so alive around her, pulsing around her, wrapping its tendrils around her. _"Someone older...someone Him was...working for...someone we didn't see..."_

Bubbles took a step back, feeling the panic crawling and swarming through her body. She looked around the room, where the walls and the ceilings were doused in that living blackness, swarming around her sister and making her pink eyes burn red and her white cheeks glow bright. There was something in her stare now, something almost heated, almost excited; her lips seemed to be curling upwards. There was something wrong here. Something very, very wrong.

"_Maybe...maybe it was a hint of what's to come..."_

The room was so hot...she hadn't even noticed it. So hot...like burning fire. She swallowed again and felt the sweat slide down from her forehead.

"_Blossom...you're scaring me..."_

She stared in response, her eyes going cold, the smile slipping away. The air was almost humming in her ears now, like a thousand angry bees.

"_What are you thinking? Someone more powerful then Him? Someone older? There's no such thing...!"_

Her sister kept on staring at her and the smile was small and curling across her face.

"_Blossom?_" she said, because she knew now. She understood. All these months, she'd let her sister slip away, let her sister find something else, she'd left her sister to battle alone with this _thing _that was polluting her mind. They'd all let her walk into this dark place, where no-one else could follow her.

"_Go to bed Bubbles,"_ she said and the contempt was almost dripping from her voice; "_Don't worry your little head over it."_

They just stared at each other for what seemed like hours, the humming in the air like an electric scream in her mind. But now...there wasn't just one iron will pushing her away. There were two currents beating down at her, it's black pounding matter entwined with something glowing pink and strong. Together, the force of their will made her clutch at her head and almost cry out, feeling like their were knives stabbing into her brain.

_Leave us be, leave us be, leave us alone, go away from us, go away from us, go away..._

Her stomach shriveled and she gasped for air, flying for the door. Looking around, she got one last look at Blossom staring out at her, before the black tendrils engulfed her body and the door slammed shut at last.

Inside, the girl stared down at her hands and then looked slowly upwards, the room plunged into an eternal darkness that she half welcomed, half wanted to escape. She let her eyes fall closed, let herself drift in the nothingness and withdraw to the peace that welcomed her within. The thought came unridden into her mind like a stream of ice water through the heat; _I remember. They said we disappeared for fifty years. Where did we go? What happened?_

The answer came trickling back to her, a spear of molten lava through the ice; **_you will be reborn from the fire...like a phoenix from the ashes. Your power will be unbridled, sending terror into the souls of the weak. _**

_My sisters..._that water surged against the heat, through the void of darkness that surrounded them. _Where will they go?_

**_They will return..._**he whispered in her ear, burning through her mind. **_They will return to the dregs from which they were created._**

The image of the Ancestor's laboratory flashed through her mind, to the vial of forbidden black liquid. Her eyes opened wide and all the calm washed away from her. There was something in her throat, that ripped her insides raw and she felt her heart wrench like a vice in her chest.

"_No_," she breathed into the abyss. "_You can't."_

There was a hiss of a blaze growing stronger, roaring out of control.

**_I? I will not be responsible for what shall befall them..._**

The tears formed in her eyes, but for once she did not curse the threads of her still existing weakness. She let them roll down her cheeks, her breath caught in her throat, the horror filling her whole.

**_It will be you, sweet Blossom. It will all be you._**

"_No..._" she whimpered as the crackling fire grew louder and she fell down to her knees. "_Please no..."_

She curled up tighter, as the shadows of the void swept around her body, leaving her crying and alone in that wide expanse of nothing.

_"Please no. Oh God, please no."_

But she only heard the silence in cold, empty reply.


	4. Blue Valentines

Dearest Diary,

The last time I wrote in this was decades ago, when I was only a mere thirteen. A weakling then, a child unaware of her true potential kept oppressed by the simpletons that surrounded her. I am so much older now. Those years as a wide-eyed, confused little girl seem to be of another person's life, like watching an old blurry film from the past.

He and I were given this old battered book by one of the minions, sent out to search the remains of the hometown. It gave us great amusement to read of the little sapling who died to rebirth me. The sprout who believed herself so clever, so strong, kept in the dark and refused the opportunity to grow and spread her tendrils across the world. He was my light. He nurtured my flame into a fierce and roaring blaze.

The sky shines a bright reddish-yellow, the clouds swirling over the black towers of our kingdom. I remember now, how the sky was once ocean blue, how the grass was once an emerald green.

Blue and green.

Our world is a beautiful phoenix reborn and I am more then a woman, I am God, I am the Sun and I am Ruler of the universe alongside him. We had to burn this world to the ground to bring it back to life again.

But I remember...

A good friend of my fellow Leader, Ruler and God has come over to visit us in our domain. I remember...some strange distant memory; of being small and weak, with my true strength yet untapped. Of being frightened by this figure with his warbling echoing voice, his scarlet skin and his white-toothed smile. Now he arrives in a gleeful cloud of jubilance and my love is delighted to see him. He comes with epic stories and grand anecdotes, their laughter ringing through our dwelling like music. I am happy he's here. We both sense the other's great power, the respect and kinship coming easily.

Yet, his arrival stirs strange feelings within me. I cannot bear to face my dark and fiery lover, for fear he'll sense the threads of my weakness. I asked our guest why he has taken to visit us now. He laughs and tells me that three shadows from the past have arrived in the hometown. He wants to fight them himself.

And I remember...

Tears roll down her blue shining eyes. Horror sparks in her glowing green. Oh those pathetic feelings of confusion and terror.

My love tells me he sent those children into the future, when he was still just a shadow behind the wall. Give us a taste of what's to come. He is greatly amused when I recall how we misunderstood his prophecy, how all we took from it was not to go on vacation. He is not surprised when I tell him his friend took credit for our work. He admits if in some parallel universe where He reigned domain over all of existence...that the great Aku would jump at any opportunity to take credit as well.

He smiles and says that he and Him are both alike in many ways, but that he himself has always been the more driven and ambitious one. His old friend wasn't fond of all that hard work to get to the top.

But I am rambling now. The real reason why I am writing in here is this; one of our subjects gifted us with a peculiar instrument from the past today. She says it's a vinyl and a record player. She found it and thought we'd like it.

It plays a song that although my love dismisses as some strange human fancy, I find disturbs me on a deep level. I had a minion transcribe the song and as I read it back...I feel something. Something empty. Something akin to...physical pain in my chest.

_She sends me blue valentines_

_all the way from Philadelphia,_

_to mark the anniversary_

_of someone that I used to be._

_And it feels just like there's_

_a warrant out for my arrest_

_got me checkin' in my rearview mirror._

_And I'm always on the run,_

_thats why I changed my name._

_And I didn't think you'd ever find me here..._

As I listen to that raw, aching song, I feel something strange, something unnatural inside the dark, black vessel of my body. And I remember...I remember the days following my ascension to my rightful and hard-earned throne. I'd ordered all the mirrors in the land be destroyed, for reasons that now elude me, reasons I must have pushed away. My subjects remind me that no mirror could withstand the scope of my terrible strength and beauty and thus, the universe had no use for them.

I think there was another reason though...

_She sends me blue valentines,_

_to remind me of my cardinal sin._

_I can never wash the guilt_

_or get these bloodstains off my hands._

_And it takes a lot of whiskey_

_to make these nightmares go away,_

_and I cut my bleedin' heart out every night..._

I used to sleep, so long ago. Now I am beyond such frailties and the nights and the days bleed into one.

But there's something buried deep, deep down where I didn't think even existed anymore. Buried beneath my cold fury and my unbridled strength and my ruthless thirst for power. It frightens me. I am...scared.

I remember...

In the mirror while I brushed my hair at night. Dropping my comb with terror as I see their eyes. Emerald green like grass, ocean blue like the sky. I don't sleep because...because they wait for me. They wait for me.

There's something I need to tell you. There's something I need to write down. Something I cannot tell anyone. Not even him, not even my beloved. He cannot know.

I can never wash the guilt, or get these bloodstains off my hands. I can never forget their faces, wrought with horror. I can never forget the black sludge to where they returned, that black writhing darkness that fuels us both.

In the chamber where we rest but do not sleep, where we indulge in more carnal desires but never sleep, never sleep...there's a hole in the wall above my head. A hole about the size of a quarter. Something only I can see.

And I hear their voices.

I've heard them every night for these last fifty years.

And I am scared...because I know...

I will hear them when I die.

They will never let me forget how I got here. They will never let me forget what I did. They will never let me forget my cardinal sin.

They will haunt me to my grave.

And I've never been so scared in my life.


End file.
